I’ve used Pinnacle for many years. I think I finally gave up on version 8 or something. The program has wonderful features. I particullarly like the music match feature that will perfectly fits royalty free music to any size clip. The program is very user friendly – HOWEVER – and this is a big however, the program is not stable and will frequently encounter corrupted files, crash without warning, drop frames, etc. I was running the fastest and meanest computer I could get my hands on. It seemed I was buying my computer around this program. When I finally gave up I had spend over $4K on a custom built monster and the program acted exactly the same. At that point I switched to Sony Vegas. Now Vegas is not a professional program, but it is very stable and does a great job – even in professional applications. There is a bit of a learning curve, at least for me – but I’m just a bit retarded sometimes. The curve is well worth the climb and it will serve you well. There are, of course, many other great programs in the $100 – $200 range such as adobe essentials, final cut express if you are a mac guy, and many others – I’m drawing a blank now…
I would stay away from Pinnacle (unless it has gotten much better)
Good luck.
